In the history of the Red Army, there have been 10 legions, all of which can fight well and are ironclad troops. Among them, the most tragic and magnificent is the Red Fifth Army, this "iron stream rearguard" wrote a glorious page for the revolution during the Long March.
On December 14, 1931, Zhao Bosheng, Ji Zhentong, Dong Zhentang, Huang Zhongyue and others mutinied in Ningdu, and except for a regiment of the 25th Division in the north of the city who was taken away by the division commander Li Sunkun, the remaining 17,000 people all participated in the uprising, which is the famous "Ningdu Uprising" in modern Chinese history.
After the Ningdu Uprising, the rebel troops, according to the instructions of the Central Military Commission, sent their troops to the Central Soviet Region to receive reorganization. During this period, after more than two months of ideological reform, the rebel troops were reorganized into the Red Fifth Army. The corps commander-in-chief and political commissar were Ji Zhentong and Xiao Jinguang respectively, while the deputy commander-in-chief and chief of staff were Dong Zhentang and Zhao Bosheng.
It can be said that the Red Fifth Army has had a bad fate since its establishment. During the anti-encirclement and suppression of the Red Army from 1931 to 1934, the leadership of the Fifth Red Army suffered a catastrophe. First, the commander-in-chief of the regiment, Ji Zhentong, and the commander of the 15th Army, Huang Zhongyue, were wrongfully killed, and then the chief of staff of the legion, Zhao Bosheng, died heroically in the battle, all of which cast a shadow over the Red Fifth Army, which was still in its infancy.
After Ji Zhentong was mistakenly killed, his superiors instructed Dong Zhentang to take over as the commander of the regiment. During the Long March, Dong Zhentang led the Red Fifth Army to resist the pursuing troops and cover the Red Army troops moving north. It should be said that covering the withdrawal of the main forces was a chore, but the officers and men of the Fifth Red Army did not complain at all. Along the way, they ignored the danger of the total annihilation of the army, repeatedly repelled the pursuing troops of the Kuomintang army, and protected the safety of the main force of the Red Army. Because of this, the Fifth Red Army was also called the "Iron Stream Defender" by comrades.
In June 1935, after the victory of the Red First and Red Fourth Fronts at Maogong (now Xiaojin) in Sichuan, the Red Fifth Army was reorganized into the Fifth Army of the Red Army, with Dong Zhentang as the commander.
In October 1936, the Fifth Red Army was incorporated into the Western Route Army and was responsible for carrying out the western expedition. During the Western Expedition, the Qinghai warlord Ma Bufang gathered his army to attack the Red Fifth Army in a big way, and at this time, the Red Fifth Army was already exhausted, and the troops that were already seriously depleted suffered heavy casualties in previous battles, and when they arrived at Gaotai, there were only more than 3,000 troops left. In contrast, Ma Bufang's army was not only well-armed and well-equipped, but also had a geographical advantage.
In the face of the increasingly tight encirclement of the enemy army, Dong Zhentang knew that there was no hope of holding on to the high platform, but suffering from the orders of his superiors, Dong Zhentang could only lead the lone army to fight for nine days and nights until he ran out of food. In order not to be taken prisoner, the military commander Dong Zhentang raised a gun and committed suicide, at the age of 42.
Although most of the leaders of the Ningdu Uprising were dead and wounded, the Fifth Red Army sent a large number of military command cadres to the Red Army, including senior generals of our army.
After Dong Zhentang's sacrifice, there was another senior general of the Red Fifth Army who saw the founding of New China, and he was the founding general Li Da. Among the founding generals, Li Da's ranking is second only to General Shock and above Xu Shiyou and other Famous Red Army generals. In addition, a number of founding lieutenant generals also emerged in the Red Fifth Army, such as Wang Bingzhang, Sun Yi, Sun Jixian, Li Xuesan, and Han Zhenji.
Take Sun Jixian as an example, let's talk about the important contributions of these founding lieutenant generals. Sun Jixian was one of the heroes who forcibly crossed the Dadu River in that year, and he personally led seventeen warriors to brave the rain of bullets and bullets to forcibly cross the Dadu River, thus opening a gap in the naturally dangerous defensive line that the enemy regarded as difficult to fly, and opening up a passage for the Central Red Army to go north. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Sun Jixian served as the first commander of the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center and continued to shine for the revolution.
Of course, the Red Fifth Army also produced many founding major generals. Their list is as follows: Wang Qian, Wang Zhenxiang, Wang Yunrui, Liu Fang, Sun Runhua, Li Yi, Li Huamin, Gu Guangshan, Wang Hongqing, Su Jin, Hou Shikui, Zhang Ruguang, Zhang Bufeng, Zhang Songping, Zhang Mingyuan, Meng Qingshan, Xu Guozhen, Guo Zhuoxin, Huang Dekui, Xiong Botao, Lu Ruilin, Cao Canzhang, Jin Hu, and Jin Laichuan.
It is worth mentioning that the Red Fifth Army has not only trained a large number of outstanding military generals for the party, but also emerged a number of cadres serving in local areas, such as Wang Youping, Yuan Xuezu, Ji Pengfei and others. In this sense, the Red Fifth Army is the new force of the Long March and the seeding machine of the Long March.